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White Collar: early radical graphic novel now available online

February 22, 2005

Milwaukee artist Brandon Bauer sends in an email: I just wanted to pass on this piece of radical political art history — it’s a book by the artist Giacomo Patri done in the 1930’s called “White Collar”. I have been searching for a copy of it for a long time and had only seen excerpts from it until recently. I think the last full published edition of the book was done in the mid-70’s…. Check it out! —Brandon
The whole book has been put online by San Francisco State University library to accompany the book The Art of California Labor. From their description of White Collar:

White Collar is a novel in linocuts by Giacomo Patri portraying the injustices of workers during the Depression. There are 128 prints in this unique visualization of the daily life hardships of a middle class family through the 1930s.
Unfolding in stark, monochromatic pictures with no text, his novel recounts the experiences of an artist in the years after the 1929 stock market crash.
Unable to find work with advertising agencies, the novel’s protagonist loses his house just as his wife informs him that she is pregnant. He soon learns that he shares much with blue collar workers and, like them, can benefit from union organizing.
Largely undiscovered, because the images of class struggle, unionization, and abortion were controversial for their time; Patri was forced to print and publish White Collar privately in limited numbers. Even now, the copies that survive are few and far between.

The book in it’s entirety can be viewed online here.

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